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Lightroom2 verses Lightroom3

I am currently trialling LR2 (have 19 days left). I have noticed that LR3 beta is out there. Is it worthwhile to buy LR2 and then upgrade or wait for LR3 to be out. Does anyone know when LR3 is likely to be out? Does anyone have upgrade experiences when they went from LR1(?) to LR2? Was there a big price difference?

I have LR2.6 and love it, bought a license on ebay for $50US which I thought was a risk but the link directed me straight back to Adobe which verified immed and since then have upgraded each .1 as it arrives. This may be the cheap way in? as most companies upgrades are cheaper for current owners than new outright purchases.

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"It is one thing to make a picture of what a person looks like, it is another thing to make a portrait of who they are" - Paul Caponigro

I got Lightroom 1 for free as a pixmantec raw shooter owner (Adobe bought them out and used their coding technology as the basis for Lightroom's raw processing, and all of us that owned raw shooter got a free copy of LR1 as part of the sale deal).

Upgrading to LR2 meant I had to pay for that version and I did so, upgrade was easy as it is basically a database that just needs an upgrade and it was an automated and easy process. I haven't trialled LR3 yet.

My suggestion would be to download trials of LR2 and LR3, try them both out in a test environment and decide what you want to do when you have had a play with both.

Thanks Rick, just found out that as a full time uni student I can get LR2 for $160, might go down that road then upgrade later. That could all change once I have a go at LR3. decisions decisions decisions.

As an example:
I batch converted 50 large jpg files into smaller jpgs, uploadable versions using ViewNX(Nikon specific software) which is a slow program by modern standards and the time taken to convert those 50 files into smaller the files was quicker than LR3B2 took to convert just one single version of one of the same batch of images.
Have no idea on why it runs so slow on my PC. My PC is old(tech) but other software run perfectly and acceptably fast on it!

I'm not a fully experienced Adobe product user and I hate their interface(s), compared to what I'm used too.

But one thing I can tell you is that the NR tool they use in LR3 B2 is excellent, and rivals Neat Image v6 that I have(but haven't installed again on my recent Win7 upgrade) .. will probably do that again soon tho, as the LR3B2 install will get obliterated once the trial is finished.

I'm about to update my PC hardware soon tho, so I'm trialling and checking out a few programs beforehand.

In answer to an early question. Massive difference between 1 and 2. Much more creative control. I use LR2 for 99% of all my editing, and if curious look at my webpage as some of the editing is fairly extensive.

For instance, +26 sharpening might be different in LR 3 as compared to LR 1, etc.; so importing .xmp's from one version of LR to another is risky. If you're willing to retweak (only very minor), then go for it.

That seems a bit silly (for adobe) to do that, as it makes it more difficult for people to upgrade products (assuming that the beta will be similar to the LR3 upgrade), which may prevent upgrade sales.